


Normal

by Pom_Rania



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Illusion Magic, Scars, very minor canon-divergence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-16 07:56:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14160243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pom_Rania/pseuds/Pom_Rania
Summary: He has to reapply the illusion whenever he leaves the orb's anti-magic range, to cover up his scars again. They've all gotten used to it.Inspired bythis post.





	Normal

If he had to describe it, he’d say it was like putting on his jewellery in the morning. It was a part of his daily routine now. And while he certainly wouldn’t be _ashamed_ of going out unadorned, he liked to look good in public. Besides, for years he had had a brand to maintain, and part of that included keeping elements of a consistent look.

It was like that in other ways too. Magical research sometimes demanded a dress code, if you didn’t want to run the risk of the experiment blowing up in your face because of how the energies reacted to the presence of metals or other magic or something. You went in, did your thing, went out, and got back in your normal gear.

Most mages would say that they didn’t use illusion for purely cosmetic purposes. Most mages were lying. (He knew; he had sold them the products to easily apply it.) There was kind of a tacit understanding between them, to never mention the difference in somebody’s appearance if it was dispelled.

That solidarity still held, even when Emon no longer stood.

Below Whitestone, where all illusion was stripped away, everybody studiously avoided looking at each other, initially. Their faces had all visibly changed, from stress if not from fire and claw, and to acknowledge another’s would be to acknowledge one’s own. None of the others had his amount of scarring not covered by clothes, but the attack had left its mark on all of them, written in stress lines and grey hairs.

They got used to it, quickly enough. There were plenty of other things that demanded their attention, and were actually important. It stopped being of any note, except for when two people’s appearance _didn’t_ change back when they entered the radius of effect. (They had covered up the grey in each other’s hair with non-magical dyes. It was an intelligent solution, he had to admit.)

He reapplied his illusion each time he left the range of the anti-magic, in the same way that he straightened his robes and brushed off any dirt. He wasn’t trying to keep his scarring secret, but almost nobody would end up seeing it. Few non-mages came to check on them; of the ones that did, most had either been involved from the beginning, or were servants who had learned, from painful experience under the previous regime, to show no reaction. 

It was normal to him now, and if it wasn’t normal to anyone else, they said nothing.


End file.
